Continue along Nether Priors past West Thorpe on your right then take the next right into Clickett Hill.
At the top of the hill, take the second turning on the right into East Thorpe following the footpath on the left-hand side of the road. To your right you will see the remains of a moat that once surrounded Basildon Hall in medieval times.
The Hall has been recorded as an ancient monument, and in actual fact featured in the Domesday Book, which is a collection of information from 1066. The Hall was demolished in 1961, and the moat drained.
‘The old Barstable Manor, which occupied an almost central position in the hundred to which it gave its name.
The hundred was the Saxon division of the Shire or County, and its meeting place was the hundred moot. The hall was probably the meeting place of the Basildon Moot. ‘Stapol’ means post or pillar and suggests a meeting place and ‘Bar’ may either represent a personal name or the description of the post.’
‘During the agricultural depression following the Napoleonic Wars there were outbreaks of machine breaking and incendiarism (incendiary means either 1. A bomb which causes fire, or 2. Which causes fire). In 1830 property worth £3,000 was destroyed at Basildon Hall, we know the hall was rebuilt at one time.’
Daphne said:
Ghost of Barstable Hall
Back in the 1830's Barstable Hall/Manor was an Inn, a lady who wore a read cloak was staying there, when a traveller at the Inn foolishly let a candle burn on the top of a bottle containing some whisky. He fell asleep, the candle burnt down and dropped into bottle, the bottle exploded. The house burnt down and the lady in the red cloak, as far as we know, lost her life in the fire, so did the traveller. The house got re-built. She was spotted by quite a few people including Daphne's Mother and was also spotted at the Holy Cross Church. Dogs used to howl when they walked past the church.
The next time the building was damaged was in 1930 something. A German owned it. It got burnt down when he was interned, as he was the enemy race in the war locals ransacked the house and pulled it down and set fire to it. When the German man came out of prison her re-built it by himself (2nd re-build).
The German man was Daphne's families landlord and his name was Mr. Brasner. They rented the house from him in 1942. The family had come from Romford when Daphne was eight years old, they lived in it through the war years until 1956 when the Basildon Development Corporation compulsory purchased the now named Basildon Hall from Mr. Brasner.
The hall was a small holding when Daphne's family moved in, the surrounding farmlands grew Barley and Flax. They used to have prisoners of war up at the fields to pull the flax. Daphne's family had a couple of prisoners help them on their small holding.
The nearest neighbours were about half a mile away. The land was right onto the railway embankment, as children they sometimes used to jump down onto the railway line (not advisable) and run along to what was called Gales Corner (a small groceries belonging to a man with the last name Gale) this later turned into the Bull Pub, then it was the Power House, and now it is block of flats. Church Road turned into Timberlog Lane and now to Clayhill Road.
All around Basildon Hall was orchards, chicken houses, duck houses, pig styes and stables.
By the sycamore tree is a dip with some deeper green grass, this is where the main well was, they used to throw the bucket down to get the water up. It was quite a big brick built well, sometimes other things would come out of it. One time Daphne's husband got some water from the well, brought it up to her and there was a dead mouse in it, she'd been making her daughters bottle with it - they would have boiled it first. They had five wells altogether, one was in the stable and they called that the cattle well. The water from the wells came from an underground spring, they used to have filters made of charcoal and sand, so it filtered the water making it clean enough to drink.
The moat went right around the house, except for a part that didn't have water and that was their drive, they used to have a horse and cart go over the drive. People stopped generally using horse and cart in the sixties. The moat was stocked with roach, carp, stickleback, and it attracted newts and also water snakes. Daphne's Dad was a keen fisherman.
The railway has encroached on the land a bit more, but by the side near the railway of the remaining moat there were more pig styes.
Daphne's brother found a dead body of a woman, she had killed herself because she thought she had cancer. She had died a couple of weeks before she was found.
vin said...Christmas, 1954, 33-years-old mother of three young children, Mrs Hetty Biney, disappeared from her home in Redgrave Road, Vange. She was on her way to St Andrew's Hospital, Billericay for a check up following an earlier operation, but she never got there. She was last see having a cup of tea and a cake at the Welcome Cafe in Timberlog Lane, near the junction with Luncies Road, but when her husband came home from work she was missing. The police were alerted and a search was made the following day and neighbours scoured the fields and ponds in the locality. Eventually, Mrs Biney's rat eaten body was found on 8 January 1955 in a disused pigsty near Basildon Hall, about one mile from her home. An empty bottle of pills was by her side.
The house had eleven rooms, vinyl on the floor rather than tiles. It had a conservatory with stained glass windows. On top of the conservatory was a sun roof, a big flat concrete part where they stepped out of their window and sunbathed. The parlour (or best room) had stained glass windows too. You can still see some paving slabs, the remains of a concrete path that went round the house.
Mr Brasner planted the orchards and trees, there used to be Greengage trees, Bullis and Cherry Plum that used to grow around the edge of the moat. The front of the house was facing the opposite direction to the railway, on the left hand corner.
The conservatory was on the left hand side to the front door.
The family used to take in lodgers, people that came down from London for a weekend or a week in the summer holidays. Daphne used to wait table and her mum used to cook all the meals.
Wildlife: There was a lot of adders, water snakes and grass snakes. The water snakes you'd see in the moat had red just underneath their eyes. There was nearby land, possibly an orchard that had masses of adders, big snakes. There seems to be very few of them in existence now.
They got used to diving in ditches or running to the woodlands for cover when enemy planes flew overhead. Sometimes they would go back and collect the tracer bullets, it was normal life to them, they took it as matter of fact.
Daphne remembers her sisters friends house got bombed, and her mum died. She turned up at the school in her night gown. They said "Why are you still in your nightie?"
She replied "My mums dead."
There were very few shops around except 'Holidays Post Office' called this as Mr. Holiday ran it. It was a general store that sold lots of things including paraffin and radio's. Radios had to be charged up (usually monthly) by accumulators, these were like a glass container. They used to listen to Dick Barton and the Archers on the radio.
They had no gas, the oven called a Kitchener was a black stove with a fire inside. They used to light the rooms by candle light. They also had outside toilets, (no sanitation).
At the bottom of the road was a Standpipe, it was brick built and only certain people had a key to it. Sometimes the wells dried up and Daphne's mum would phone someone up who would bring a big tanker and fill the well with water. It was only in desperate circumstances that they could get water from the Standpipe. When they did a lady would let them fill up their buckets that they carried with a long stick. They would have to climb up the hill with sticks and buckets and they were only young, if their buckets were only half full by the time they got home their mum would really tell them off. In the winter time the moat used to ice over, if it was solid enough the children would skate on it. In the summertime Daphne's brother would have a punt, a sort of boat with a long stick, he would push his stick against the mud on the moat bottom and sail around the moat.
Continue along this path over the railway line and into Puck Lane marked on a sign at the side of the path at the end of Osbourne Road, close to a litter bin. Puck Lane has houses to the left and Puck Woods to the right.
‘When Swan Mead School was built (nr Puck Lane) sixty bronze pieces were discovered which were thought to date back to 1000 BC and 750 BC.’
Follow the often winding and narrow lane until you reach Clay Hill Road.
‘Vange Hall was the site where fragments of Celtic spear heads and sword blades have been found, also Roman tiles and bricks.’
We have subsequently discoverd after studying even older maps, that Vange Hall was south of the Puck Lane-Clay Hill Road intersection, at a point which now lies in the middle of what is now Basildon Golf Course, approximately midway between Basildon Hall and the Five Bells roundabout.
Bullet Points for Route C
- You will see the remains of a moat that used to surround the Basildon Hall which stood from medieval times until 1961.
- The original hall was built before 1066 as it was recorded in the Domesday Book which is a collection of information from this time.
- The hall was demolished and the moat was drained in 1961 by the Basildon Development Corporation.
- Ghost of Barstable Hall Back in the 1830's Barstable Hall/Manor was an Inn, a lady who wore a read cloak was staying there, when a traveller at the Inn foolishly let a candle burn on the top of a bottle containing some whisky. He fell asleep, the candle burnt down and dropped into bottle, the bottle exploded. The house burnt down and the lady in the red cloak, as far as we know, lost her life in the fire, so did the traveller. The house got re-built. She was spotted by quite a few people including Daphne's Mother and was also spotted at the Holy Cross Church. Dogs used to howl when they walked past the church.
- The next time the building was damaged was in 1930 something. A German owned it. It got burnt down when he was interned, as he was the enemy race in the war locals ransacked the house and pulled it down and set fire to it. When the German man came out of prison her re-built it by himself (2nd re-build).
- Daphne Andrews family rented the house from 1942 to 1956. (During the war years).
- All around Basildon Hall was orchards, chicken houses, duck houses, pig styes and stables.
- By the sycamore tree is a dip with some deeper green grass, this is where the main well was, they used to throw the bucket down to get the water up. It was quite a big brick built well, sometimes other things would come out of it. One time Daphne's husband got some water from the well, brought it up to her and there was a dead mouse in it, she'd been making her daughters bottle with it!
- They had five wells altogether, one was in the stable and they called that the cattle well. The water from the wells came from an underground spring, they used to have filters made of charcoal and sand, so it filtered the water making it clean enough to drink.
- The moat went right around the house, except for a part that didn't have water and that was their drive. The moat was stocked with roach, carp, stickleback, and it attracted newts and also water snakes.
- They used to have a horse and cart, horse and cart was less in common use from the late 50's.
- The house had eleven rooms, vinyl on the floor rather than tiles. It had a conservatory with stained glass windows. On top of the conservatory was a sun roof, a big flat concrete part where they stepped out of their window and sunbathed. The parlour (or best room) had stained glass windows too. You can still see some paving slabs, the remains of a concrete path that went round the house.
- The front of the house was facing the opposite direction to the railway, on the left hand corner. The conservatory was on the left hand side to the front door.
- Wildlife: There was a lot of adders, water snakes and grass snakes. The water snakes you'd see in the moat had red just underneath their eyes. There was nearby land, possibly an orchard that had masses of adders, big snakes. There seems to be very few of them in existence now.
- They got used to diving in ditches or running to the woodlands for cover when enemy planes flew overhead. Sometimes they would go back and collect the tracer bullets, it was normal life to them, they took it as matter of fact.
- They had no gas, the oven called a Kitchener was a black stove with a fire inside. They used to light the rooms by candle light. They also had outside toilets.
- At the bottom of the road was a Standpipe, it was brick built and only certain people had a key to it. Sometimes the wells dried up and Daphne's mum would phone someone up who would bring a big tanker and fill the well with water.
- It was only in desperate circumstances that they could get water from the Standpipe. When they did a lady would let them fill up their buckets that they carried with a long stick. They would have to climb up the hill with sticks and buckets and they were only young, if their buckets were only half full by the time they got home their mum would really tell them off.
- In the winter time the moat used to ice over, if it was solid enough the children would skate on it. In the summertime Daphne's brother would have a punt, a sort of boat with a long stick, he would push his stick against the mud on the moat bottom and sail around the moat.
- ‘When Swan Mead School was built (nr Puck Lane) sixty bronze pieces were discovered which were thought to date back to 1000 BC and 750 BC.’
- ‘Vange Hall was the site where fragments of Celtic spear heads and sword blades have been found, also Roman tiles and bricks.’
